New glories await China in 2014- Xi
December 31, 2013, 11:56 am

“In 2014, we will make new strides along the path of reform.” said Xi [Getty Images]

In his New Year’s eve address to the nation, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday expressed confidence in China’s future reforms.

“In 2013, we made an overall arrangement on comprehensively deepening reform, drawing a grand blueprint for the country’s future development,” Xi said in an address televised by state broadcasters.

“In 2014, we will make new strides along the path of reform.”

Addressing domestic and foreign audiences, Xi said the fundamental purpose of reforms is to make Chinese society fair and just and people’s lives better.

“We have made numerous glories in the great cause of reform and opening-up. I firmly believe that new glories will be awaiting the Chinese people,” he said.

China’s ruling Communist Party announced on Monday that Xi will head a group to steer economic and social reforms in the country.

This is the latest among a series of important announcements that succeeded the reform blueprint put forward at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC meet held in November. The November meet resulted in major reforms like relaxing China’s one-child policy and further freeing up markets.

57 founding members, many of them prominent US allies, will sign into creation the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on Monday, the first major global financial instrument independent from the Bretton Woods system.

Representatives of the countries will meet in Beijing on Monday to sign an agreement of the bank, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. All the five BRICS countries are also joining the new infrastructure investment bank.

The agreement on the $100 billion AIIB will then have to be ratified by the parliaments of the founding members, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily press briefing in Beijing.

The AIIB is also the first major multilateral development bank in a generation that provides an avenue for China to strengthen its presence in the world’s fastest-growing region.